panic vs scare

panic

verb
  • To cause (someone) to feel panic (“overwhelming fear or fright”); also, to frighten (someone) into acting hastily. 

  • To cause (a computer system) to crash. 

  • To feel panic, or overwhelming fear or fright; to freak out, to lose one's head. 

  • Of a computer system: to crash. 

  • To highly amuse, entertain, or impress (an audience watching a performance or show). 

noun
  • Foxtail millet or Italian millet (Setaria italica), the second-most widely grown species of millet. 

  • Overwhelming fear or fright, often affecting groups of people or animals; (countable) an instance of this; a fright, a scare. 

  • A rapid reduction in asset prices due to broad efforts to raise cash in anticipation of such prices continuing to decline. 

  • A plant of the genus Panicum, or of similar plants of other genera (especially Echinochloa and Setaria) formerly included within Panicum; panicgrass or panic grass. 

  • The edible grain obtained from one of the above plants. 

  • A highly amusing or entertaining performer, performance, or show; a riot, a scream. 

adj
  • Pertaining to or resulting from overwhelming fear or fright. 

  • Of fear, fright, etc: overwhelming or sudden. 

scare

verb
  • To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way. 

adj
  • lean; scanty 

noun
  • A cause of slight terror; something that inspires fear or dread. 

  • A minor fright. 

  • A device or object used to frighten. 

How often have the words panic and scare occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )